Carette of Sark eBook

CHAPTER III

HOW TWO FOUGHT IN THE DARK

When George Hamon told me the next part of the story
of those early days, his enjoyment in the recalling
of certain parts of it was undisguised. He told
it with great gusto.

As he lay that night on the fern-bed in the cottage
above the chasm, he thought of Rachel Carre, and what
might have been if Martel’s father had only
been properly drowned on the Hanois instead of marrying
the Guernsey woman. Rachel and he might have
come together, and he would have made her as happy
as the day was long. And now—­his life
was empty, and Rachel’s was broken,—­and
all because of this wretched half-Frenchman, with his
knowing ways and foreign beguilements. The girls
had held him good-looking. Well, yes, he was
good-looking in a way, but it passed his understanding
why any Sercq girl should want to marry a foreigner
while home lads were still to be had. He did
not think there would be much marrying outside the
Island for some time to come, but it was bitter hard
that Rachel Carre should have had to suffer in order
to teach them that lesson.

Gr-r-r! but he would like to have Monsieur Martel
up before him just for ten minutes or so, with a clear
field and no favour. Martel was strong and active,
it was true, but there—­he was a drinker,
and a Frenchman at that, and drink doesn’t run
to wind, and a Frenchman doesn’t run to fists.
Very well—­say twenty minutes then, and
if he—­George Hamon—­did not make
Monsieur Martel regret ever having come to Sercq, he
would deserve all he got and would take it without
a murmur.

He was full of such imaginings, when at last he fell
asleep, and he dreamt that he and Martel met in a
lonely place and fought. And so full of fight
was he that he rolled off the fern-bed and woke with
a bump on the floor, and regretted that it was only
a dream. For he had just got Martel’s head
comfortably under his left arm, and was paying him
out in full for all he had made Rachel Carre suffer,
when the bump of his fall put an end to it.

The following night he fell asleep at once, tired
with a long day’s work in the fields. He
woke with a start about midnight, with the impression
of a sound in his ears, and lay listening doubtfully.
Then he perceived that his ears had not deceived him.
There was someone in the room,—­or something,—­and
for a moment all the superstitions among which he had
been bred crawled in his back hair and held his breath.

Then a hand dropped out of the darkness and touched
his shoulder, and he sprang at the touch like a coiled
spring.

“Diable!”

It was Martel’s voice and usual exclamation,
and in a moment Hamon had him by the throat and they
were whirling over the floor, upsetting the table
and scattering the chairs, and George Hamon’s
heart was beating like a merry drum at feel of his
enemy in the flesh.

But wrestling blindly in a dark room did not satisfy
him. That which was in him craved more.
He wanted to see what he was doing and the full effects
of it.